Simpson in Britain for TV Show, Oxford Appearance

O.J. Simpson took his campaign to revive his image overseas Saturday, arriving in Britain to the same mix of abhorrence and adulation he left in the United States.

“I just want people to hear the truth,” Simpson said as he walked out of customs at London’s Heathrow Airport into a crush of cameras and autograph-seekers.

Simpson plans to appear on a television program Monday and field questions from Oxford students at an appearance at the university Tuesday.

The “O.J. in the U.K.” tour is being promoted by Britain’s best-known publicist, Max Clifford, who said it will give Simpson an opportunity to set the record straight in a country where many people still have “grave doubts” about his innocence in the death of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman. Much of Simpson’s trial was shown live on cable TV in Britain.

“We love you, O.J.!” shouted autograph-seekers in a crowd of nearly 1,000 people waiting for Simpson to clear passport control and customs.

Smaller crowds waited to greet relatives returning from Islamic pilgrimages to Mecca and had cameramen jumping up and down every time they cried, “There he is!”

“A cameraman said O.J. was coming,” said Farhana Siddiq, at Heathrow to pick up her mother-in-law. “I told some other people, and there was a big rush of onlookers. I should have kept my mouth shut.”

Sources close to Simpson say the tour in part is intended to see whether Simpson has any chance of making money overseas. He is said to be considering a tour of Japan as well.